Germany’s Baerbock says Russia troop buildup ‘hard not to take as a threat’

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock held talks with Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday, seeking to ease tensions amid fears that Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine.

Heading into the talks, Baerbock said that relations between Russia and the new government in Berlin are “also important to me, personally.”

“There is no alternative to stable ties between Moscow and Berlin,” she said.

Baerbock had spent the previous days in Kyiv, where she said Germany would “do our all to guarantee Ukraine’s security.”

She also said any attack on Ukraine would come with a high price for the aggressor.

However, Berlin has been vague on the actual steps it was taking to help Ukraine. Unlike the United States and the UK, Germany has refused to supply the ex-Soviet state with defensive weapons. Baerbock, instead, has offered to boost Ukraine’s cyber defenses.

What did the ministers say?

Germany’s foreign minister appeared at a joint press conference with Russia’s veteran Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The two discussed the 

Lavrov seemed to strike a conciliatory tone following the talks, despite the border standoff between Ukraine and Russia, as well as the demands for security guarantees Moscow has recently delivered to NATO.

He said that the talks showed the possibility of slowly moving in a positive direction.

At the same time, Lavrov lamented the damage done by anti-Russian sentiment in Brussels and “the group of anti-Russian countries in the EU.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Lavrov also mention the Balkans, where some pro-Russian leaders have been recently sanctioned by the US.

“We and Germany both have a joint interest for the situation in the Balkans to develop according to a positive scenario,” he said.

Russia currently has an estimated 100,000 troops stationed on its border with Ukraine. Moscow has also been demanding that NATO drastically scale back its military buildup in eastern Europe and wants to secure a pledge from the trans-Atlantic military alliance that it will never accept Ukraine as a member. But Russia denies seeking a pretext to invade Ukraine or planning an attack.

On Tuesday, Russian Parliamentary Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin accused NATO of looking for a pretext to “occupy” Ukraine.

“It is perfectly obvious that Washington is attempting to justify its expansion and moving NATO troops towards Russian borders,” he told Russian lawmakers.

Heading to Moscow, Baerbock said Berlin wanted stable diplomatic relations and was “ready for an honest dialogue over steps for more security for everyone in Europe.”

“Our framework are the fundamental principles of our order of peace and security,” she wrote on Twitter.

What is Berlin’s stance on Russia?

Despite being new to her position, Baerbock has already shown herself willing to draw clear lines when it comes to Russia, including last month’s expulsion of two Russian embassy employees.

Baerbock declared the two personae non gratae over an assassination in a Berlin park, which a German court linked to the Russian state, and she decried the 2019 killing as “murder by state contract.”

She also took a clear stance on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which connects Russia and Germany, saying that the pipeline should not be allowed to operate if the crisis in Ukraine escalates.

However, the government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz seems to be split on the issue. Last week, Germany’s Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said the project “should not be dragged into this conflict.”

Ukraine opposes the pipeline because it would allow Russia to bypass its neighbor when exporting gas to buyers in western Europe, thus potentially reducing Kyiv’s international significance and potentially depriving the impoverished country of transit fees.

But Germany is facing an energy crisis and rising electricity prices, putting Berlin under pressure to open the valves on Nord Stream 2. Many Western politicians accuse Russia of trying to weaponize energy supplies against the European Union, which Moscow and its state-controlled gas exporter Gazprom deny.

What is Moscow’s perspective on Berlin’s role?

Speaking from Moscow, DW correspondent Emily Sherwin said that the Russian side would be “listening closely” and trying to get a feel for Germany’s new foreign minister.

“Baerbock has suggested reviving peace talks in the Normandy format, with Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany at the table,” Sherwin said.

From Moscow’s perspective, however, “Germany and even Europe basically have nothing to do” with Russia demands on security, she added.

“Russia has demanded that the US and NATO issue a written response on its demands, so it seems that Russia is only willing to talk to the US when it comes to these security demands and in a way, Europe is on the sidelines watching.”

The US and NATO have made it clear that they are not willing to directly interfere into a military clash between Russia and Ukraine. Media reports indicate that the US and its European allies are now mulling sanctions against Russian banks in case of an attack on Ukraine, possibly cutting them off from the international SWIFT payment system. But such a move would also damage Western economies.

From the Russian perspective, “the West really has no leverage” on Moscow, said Sherwin, nothing that Russia has “become used to sanctions over the last few years.”

Edited by: Rebecca Staudenmaier

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-s-baerbock-says-russia-troop-buildup-hard-not-to-take-as-a-threat/a-60456847?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf